Why the New Hampshire Primary Is so Important

Why the New Hampshire Primary Is so Important Soon after Hillary Clinton announced to the world Im running for president  in the 2016 election, her  campaign made it clear what her next steps would be: She would travel to New Hampshire, where she won in 2008, well ahead of the primaries there to make her case directly to voters. So whats the big deal about New Hampshire, a state that offers up only four electoral votes in the presidential election? Why does everyone - the candidates, the media, the American public - pay so much attention to The Granite State? Here are four reasons why the New Hampshire primaries are so important. The New Hampshire Primaries Are First New Hampshire holds its primaries before anyone else. The state protects its status as first in the nation by maintaining a law that allows New Hampshires top elections official to move the date earlier if another state tries to pre-empt its primary. The parties, too, can punish states that try to move their primaries before New Hampshires. So the state is  a proving ground for campaigns. The winners capture some early, and important, momentum in the race for their partys presidential nomination. They become instant frontrunners, in other words. The losers are forced to re-evaluate their campaigns. New Hampshire Can Make or Break a Candidate Candidates who dont do well in New Hampshire are forced to take a hard look at their campaigns. As President John F. Kennedy famously said,  If they dont love you in March, April and May, they wont love you in November.   Some candidates quit after the New Hampshire primary, as President Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 after winning only a narrow victory against U.S.  Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. The sitting president came within just 230 votes of losing the New Hampshire primary - an unprecedented failure - in what Walter Cronkite called a major setback. For others, a win in the New Hampshire primary cements the path to the White House. In 1952, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower won after his friends got him on the ballot. Eisenhower went on to win the White House against  Democrat Estes Kefauver that year. The World Watches New Hampshire Presidential politics has become a spectator sport in the United States. Americans love a horse race, and thats what the media serve up: Endless public-opinion polls and interviews with voters in the run-up to Election Day. The New Hampshire primary is to political junkies what Opening Day is to Major League baseball fans. That is to say: Its a really big deal.   The Media Watch New Hampshire The first primary of the presidential election season used to allow the television networks a trial run at reporting results. The networks compete to be first to call the race. In  Martin Plissners book The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections,  the February 1964 New Hampshire primary was described as a  media  circus and, therefore, the center of the political worlds  attention.   Over a thousand correspondents, producers, technicians and support people of all kinds descended on New Hampshire, its voters and its merchants to confer the special franchise they have ever since enjoyed ... Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, New Hampshire was the first test in every cycle of the networks speed in declaring winners of elections. While networks continue to compete against each other to be first to call the race, they are overshadowed by digital media in reporting the results first. The emergence of online news sites has only served to add to the carnival-like atmosphere of news coverage in the state.

All About New Hampshire Colony

All About New Hampshire Colony New Hampshire was one of the 13 original colonies of the United States and was  founded in 1623. The land in the New World was granted to Captain John Mason, who named the new settlement after his homeland in Hampshire County, England. Mason sent settlers to the new territory to create a fishing colony. However, he died before seeing the place where he had spent a considerable amount of money building towns and defenses. Fast Facts: New Hampshire Colony Also Known As: Royal Province of New Hampshire, Upper Province of MassachusettsNamed After: Hampshire, EnglandFounding Year: 1623Founding Country: EnglandFirst Known European Settlement: David Thomson, 1623; William and Edward Hilton, 1623Residential Native Communities: Pennacook and Abenaki (Algonkian)Founders: John Mason, Ferdinando Gorges, David ThomsonImportant People: Benning Wentworth  First Continental Congressmen: Nathaniel Folsom; John SullivanSigners of the Declaration: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton New England New Hampshire was one of the four New England Colonies, along with Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhone Island colonies. The New England colonies were one of three groups comprising the 13 original colonies. The other two groups were the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Settlers of the New England Colonies enjoyed mild summers but endured very harsh long winters. One advantage of the cold  was that it helped to limit the spread of disease, a considerable problem in the warmer climates of the Southern Colonies.   Early Settlement Under the direction of Captain John Mason and his short-lived Laconia Company, two groups of settlers arrived at the mouth of the Piscataqua River and established two fishing communities, one at the mouth of the river and one eight miles upstream. David Thomson set sail for New England in 1623, with 10 others and his wife, and landed and established a plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua, near what is Rye called Odiornes Point; it only lasted for a few years. About the same time, London fishmongers William and Edward Hilton set up a colony at  Hiltons Point near Dover. The Hiltons obtained financial support to buy land in 1631, and by 1632, a group of  66 men and 23 women were sent out to the budding colony.  Ã‚  Other early settlements include Thomas Warnertons Strawberry Bank near Portsmouth and Ambrose Gibbons at Newichawannock.   Fish, whales, fur, and timber were important natural resources for the New Hampshire colony. Much of the land was rocky and not flat, so agriculture was limited. For sustenance, settlers grew wheat, corn, rye, beans, and various squashes. The mighty old-growth trees of New Hampshires forests were prized by the English Crown for their use as ships masts. Many of the first settlers came to New Hampshire, not in search of religious freedom but rather to seek their fortunes through trade with England, primarily in fish, fur, and timber. Native Inhabitants The primary tribes of Native Americans living in the New Hampshire territory when the English arrived were the Pennacook and Abenaki, both Algonquin speakers. The early years of English settlement were relatively peaceful. Relations between the groups began to deteriorate in the latter half of the 1600s, largely due to leadership changes in New Hampshire and to problems in Massachusetts that led to a migration of native people into New Hampshire. The town of Dover was a focal point of struggle between the settlers and the Pennacook, where settlers built numerous garrisons for defense (giving Dover the nickname Garrison City that persists today). The Pennacook attack on June 7, 1684, is remembered as the Cochecho Massacre.   New Hampshire Independence Control of the New Hampshire colony changed several times before the colony declared its independence. It was a Royal Province prior to 1641 when it was claimed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was dubbed the Upper Province of Massachusetts. In 1680, New Hampshire  returned to its status as a Royal Province, but this lasted only until 1688 when it again became part of Massachusetts. New Hampshire regained independence- from Massachusetts, not from England- in 1741. At that time, the people elected Benning Wentworth as its own governor and remained under his leadership until 1766. New Hampshire sent two men to the First Continental Congress in 1774: Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan. Six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, New Hampshire became the first colony to declare its independence from England. Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, and Matthew Thornton signed the Declaration for New Hampshire. The colony became a state in 1788.  Ã‚   Sources and Further Reading Daniell, Jere R. Colonial New Hampshire: A History. University Press of New England, 1981.Morison, Elizabeth Forbes, and Elting E. Morison. New Hampshire: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.Whitney, D. Quincy. Hidden History of New Hampshire. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008.